questions on 2012 or even 2011 garmins

decided it was time to upgrade mainly thinking the traffic alerts might be more advanced/better coverage on the new ones

i bought a 3597 and really loved it, loved the voice commandbut i quickly found out it does not give voice traffic alerts unless you set a route - this is useless for what i use my garmin for- i drive 800-1000 a week on the same routes and want to know when accidents etc are up ahead but do not want to set routes all the time

my 760 beeps and puts a little symbol on the screen and vocally warns me there is an accident up ahead,construction etc, i use this every day and it is a must have for mei returned the 3597

i am wondering if there are any 2012 or even 2011 55 or 7 inch models that have the voice command and have traffic alerts without a route set????

trying to use the garmin website is useless and they were not helpful at all

anyone with 2012 models etc that could tell me if their models do this and which ones might be the best to buy would be greatthank you

Comments

I gave up on Garmin's traffic long ago so I can't help there. Regarding screen size though, the first Garmin model with a 7" screen was the Dezl 760 which was introduced in 2012. Aside from that, you will need a 2013 model if you want a 7" screen.

There are plenty of models with 5" screens however, going back a number of years.

I have a 2595 with GTM60. It does ring a ding sound when you are approaching a congestion, followed by a banner indicating the conditions of of the congestion. When you enter the perceived congestion zone, the road color is augmented by color broken line segments, yellow for moderate and red for severe and some icons for accidents, construction etc. I believe the same indicators exist in all the recent-model Advanced and Prestige Series.

And of course, on the models with route capability, you need to program the route only once and recall it every time you would like to travel the same route.

Some models, like you 3597, have the "My Trend" feature. It learns your travel pattern and will offer you the most-traveled routes that you use at particular times of the day without your input. It is quite annoying at times. I am not sure if it works with pre-programmed routes.

I believe the same indicators exist in all the recent-model Advanced and Prestige Series..

Well the OP has one of the prestige models and it evidently won't do what he wants. He wants traffic warnings when no route is active. The part I don't understand is that he wants a warning of "an accident up ahead". How would the GPS know whether an accident is "ahead" or "behind" if you aren't travelling a route?

yes i want to know if i am coming up on any kind of traffic 5-10 miles in advancei can often reroute through phoenixthe old 760 has zero problems doing this, it puts up a symbol and a voice tells me there is wreck/traffic/construction etc ahead a certain amount of miles

did not know it could do this but i am not sure how the 3597 would learn my routes because depending on the traffic i often take different ones, there are usually 2-3 highways i can take around or through town depending on what the traffic is doing

the 2595 sounds like it might be something that would work for me, i will look at that one

These devices receive traffic data for a consierable distance from your current location. 50 to 100 mile radius seems typical. (As long as you have something beter than the "free" Navteq serice.) That's the case for my Garmin 255W, my old Delphi, and (until we cancelled the subscription) the built-in GPS in my wife's car. The built-in GPS always showed color codes for traffic conditions, whether it or not it was navigating a route.

I rarely used the other two without being on a route, but I suspect that you can switch the Garmin to the traffic screen rather than the normal screen even if not on a route. There wouldn't be a warning for something upcoming on the current undefined route, but you can glance at the GPS every now and then and look for red or yellow stripes.

yes i want to know if i am coming up on any kind of traffic 5-10 miles in advancei can often reroute through phoenixthe old 760 has zero problems doing this, it puts up a symbol and a voice tells me there is wreck/traffic/construction etc ahead a certain amount of miles

did not know it could do this but i am not sure how the 3597 would learn my routes because depending on the traffic i often take different ones, there are usually 2-3 highways i can take around or through town depending on what the traffic is doing

the 2595 sounds like it might be something that would work for me, i will look at that one

any other suggestions would be great too

I just completed a 1700 mile trip which took me through Seattle, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. I'm not sure what your looking for as far as advanced traffic warnings but my 3797 poped up a traffic screen miles in advance of the potential problem.

When the screen comes up it appears from the right hand side of the map screen. It displays a road with details of the delay (how far ahead and how long the delay is, etc.) and if there is alternative routes which would save you time it displays that information as well.

In all cases, I had a route entered so I can't speak to whether this would work without a route but it would appear to be superior to the presentation of any of my Nuvi's, which includes the 760.

One thing you may need to have done for these warnings to appear is to insure that you have selected the traffic to display. To do this, go to Settings - Map & Vehicle - Map Tools and SELECT Traffic from the list presented. Also select all the other items you like to see on the map screen. Then Save your suggestions.

At this point the Traffic information should appear on the map screen when ever there is something to report. You can call it up at any time by having the traffic cable attached and powering the Nuvi and pressing the 3bar icon in the lower right corner of the map screen and selecting Traffic from the pop up screen. Note, you can have the traffic tab visible all the time or close it any time by pressing the X in the upper left corner of the tab.

The 3797's traffic feature gave us plenty of warning about I-17 south bound being down to 1 lane (out of 5 or 6) north of Phoenix yesterday. However knowing of the delay and how long it would be didn't help much as there was no other faster route available. :cry:

yes it will tell you about the traffic, ask you if you want to reroute etc if you have a route set

i had all the settings for traffic, etc clicked and i also wrote garmin who clarified that the 3597 will not alert you to traffic problems unless a route is set

i am looking for something different, what i want is for the gps to tell me when i need to look at it, by voice or some kind of loud tonethis is exactly what the 760 does, but i was hoping to be on the newer traffic and i like some of the other functions the 3597 has

i dont want to pay attention to the gps all day when i am driving around, i just want it to loudly alert me when there is a problem coming up

if i am traveling out of state i use it the way you did on this trip, setting routes etc

but i do not want to be bothered with setting routes every day for work, my route is not the same each day or week, it changes all the time

i am considering looking at tomtom since i reading their traffic is better than garmin

i am very disappointed in garmin, for 2-3 months i have been reading a lot of reviews and anytime someone talks about upgrading to another device they complain they lost some kind of function they had with their older gps

this makes no sense, i expect a 2013 garmin nuvi to do any and everything any nuvi before it has done, i certainly do not expect to lose functionsif space is a problem with having all these functions available then stick a 32gb sd card in it and charge me $50 more for the device

Costco has 2595LMTHD for $170 and a $10 rebate from Garmin. It comes with the GTM60, HD digital traffic.

P.S. Just got a 3597LMTHD refurb at $250 from The GPS Store. I like it a lot, quite a bit more than the 2495LMTHD that I already have. It is a shame that the 3597 lacks the one critical feature you need.